


Needs

by Nagaina



Category: Exalted
Genre: Exalted smut, M/M, May/December romance technically, PWP, insert dirty joke about the Elemental Pole of Fire here, this is what happens when Mercury leaves retrograde at just the right time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 21:05:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6536314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nagaina/pseuds/Nagaina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cathak Cainan is not the sort to give much thought to those every day little aches and pains his many centuries of life have given him. Fortunately, he has someone close at hand willing to give them the care they deserve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needs

It was native honesty that forced Cathak Cainan to admit, seven hours into his current interminable task, that there was literally no situation so urgent, no circumstance so terrible, no possible plot or scheme by any of his contemporaries so potentially ruinous to the stability of the Realm, that would make poring over paperwork anything other than brain-meltingly obnoxious drudgery. It was for this that he – well, not he personally, but the House at least – employed _whole legions_ of stylus-pushers, forensic accountants and forensic clerks and other such individuals whose pulses only raced when they were neck deep in scrolls and ledgers and mountains of stolen and carefully recopied correspondence, seeking just the right detail that would allow them to come to people like him and tell them who needed to be stabbed. The table in his private rooms – low to the floor, long enough to seat eight to a side, wide enough to serve a late meal upon – was covered in a small mountain of the aforementioned scrolls and ledgers, stacks of loose paper and parchment held together with twists of metal and ties of silks, the colors of which theoretically indicated the level of privacy and urgency each document represented, wax tablets stacked seven high, and an assortment of styluses, brushes, pens, ink stones, pots of water, and, on his side at least, scraps of paper covered in vaguely organized scribbles. In all likelihood, the Dragons-held spirit of his late father was somewhere lamenting the state of his penmanship to any ancestors or small gods who would listen. His companion, by way of contrast, had the document he was perusing held open neatly, pinned at the corners by carved basalt weights in the shape of moonflowers, taking notes in flawless calligraphy on a wax tablet that he had not smudged even once, having pinned the trailing edge of his sleeves back some hours before.

Cainan reached up, rubbed his eyes, and, unthinkingly, cracked his neck. From across the table came the sound of a tablet and a stylus being set down with firm authority and a serenely stern voice asking, with only the faintest hint of asperity, “How long have your neck and spine been troubling you, my lord?”

Cainan chuckled, straightened both the offending back and neck, and winced slightly as the motion tightened muscles in both his shoulders and his lower back. “Decades now, I assure you, my young friend. The consequence of lifetime of being hit around the head and shoulders by individuals attempting to deprive me of the use of both.”

V’Neef Citan inclined one elegantly arched silver brow in a manner that Cainan, several centuries his elder, found damned near perfectly, wordlessly chastising. His grandmother, the Lady V’Neef herself, possessed similar powers and deployed them to devastating effect when she felt those around her were being insufferably foolish, which was infrequently enough that the gesture did not lose power from overuse and retained the capacity to make even the most self-possessed among her descendants and her siblings and her siblings’ descendants wither in dismay under the force of her silent judgment. Cainan did not quite wither under the scrutiny of a man less than a tenth of a quarter of his age but he _wanted_ to and he sent a muttered reproach V’Neef’s way for teaching _this particular_ grandchild that trick. “Truly, I am well. You need not concern yourself for my wellbeing.”

That assertion elicited a reaction that Cainan was _enormously_ tempted to call a snort – but V’Neef Citan was entirely too well bred for such a response. “Nonetheless, we have been at this – “ His sweeping gesture took in the table and its contents, the fact that evening had fallen quite unremarked in the garden beyond the verandah, and, at some point, the servants had come to close the outer doors against the evening chill, lit the lamps and fed up the braziers, “for quite some time. Perhaps a respite is in order, for the sake of our collective wellbeing.”

“That I can agree with.” Cainan leaned against the lightly cushioned back of his chair, wincing at the audible crackling of his entire spine as he did so.

“Excellent.” Citan, damn his pretty eyes, unfolded himself from his position, also in one of the low, dubiously cushioned chairs, with the ease of a man who had yet to see the passage of his first half-century and reached for the cord to summon the servants. “I will see to it at once.”

Cainan regarded his young companion with undisguised bemusement. “My several-times-great-grandson will be aggrieved to know that you have replaced him as my personal secretary.”

“Avedis is glad he is finally having some time to pay court to the lady his mother has been trying to get him to marry for the last three years,” Citan replied tartly, and went to confer quietly with the senior majordomo who came in response to that summons while Cainan began the rather more laborious than it used to be process of extricating himself from his chair. He should, reflected somewhat irritably, get a much taller table. And definitely much taller chairs, with better cushions, and higher backs. 

The majordomo bowed and withdrew, sliding the doors closed as he went, and Citan turned to face him – or, rather, to face the room, which he scoured with a searching gaze, pale green eyes intent until they found what they sought on the verandah, a low, long bench, only slightly higher than the table and crossed quickly over to it. “Would you like to be inside, my lord, or outside?”

“You may call me Cainan, you know,” He replied, somewhat irritably, and then, “For what, dare I ask?”

“For your treatment,” Citan responded, matter of factly. “It is rather cool out here just now, and I would recommend inside as you will be disrobed for most of it.”

“ _Will_ I?” Cainan was, he was again forced to admit by basic honesty, far too old to be scandalized by anything coming out of this young man’s mouth but he would be damned if the sensation were not somewhere close to it. “What sort of treatment is this to be?”

“Massage, my – Cainan.” A slight smile touched the corners of that damned imp’s mouth. “I understand from your majordomo that you rarely partake of such simple cures but, given the sounds I just heard emerging from your spine, it is my firm belief as a House of Bells-trained physician that it would do you considerable good and little, if any, harm.”

“Impudent stripling,” Cainan informed him, unable to hold back the laugh that followed. “Never grow old, Citan.”

“It will be as the Dragons will,” Citan replied primly, and dragged the bench inside, making up a nest on it of long, flat floor cushions and the silken coverlets, currently in fashion, that had begun appearing on all the pieces of furniture in his private quarters in the last season. “But, in all seriousness, if I can ease your discomfort at all, I will. If it pleases you?”

Cainan found himself as incapable of resisting the Lady V’Neef’s sweetly pleading eyebrows, even transplanted as they were onto the brow of her grandson, and, assessing the field of battle and finding it strangely out of favor for him given that it was his own quarters, surrendered. “Oh, very well.”

He had already shed several of the customary outer layers of garments he generally wore throughout the day as their presence on his body irked him and Citan – trained at the House of Bells, after all – was more than capable of assisting with the rest, some of which were lightly armored with thin plates of jade sheathed in silk and panels of jade chain likewise muffled, hanging them carefully out of the way of the braziers so none of the trailing edges or bits of decoration could take fire. He kept his smallclothes, at least for the moment, and at his young _imp_ companion’s direction, lay down on his stomach with his arms by his sides while the imp wound the long braid he wore his hair in around his head and slid jade pins into the mass to hold it in place. A coverlet went over him before the servants arrived, bearing with them an assortment of items – more cushions, a selection of the thickest, softest towels from the bathhouse, bottles and ewers and a deep bowl for washing. Citan fed up the braziers with chips of fragrant wood and lowered the lamps, covering him with towels where he lay, becoming slowly more relaxed from the gentle warmth and the perfume of the air, equal parts incense and the scent of his companion’s body as he arranged the cushions on the floor between them, having shed his own unwieldy outer garments. 

“Are you ticklish?” The imp asked, pouring a deep golden oil from one of the flasks into the cupped palm of his hand.

“Not that I have noticed,” Cainan replied, eyes half-lidded and half-certain he was being teased.

“Are there any parts of your body that you dislike being touched?” And now the imp was rubbing his hands together and the scent rising from them added another note to the perfume in the air, one that was warm and earthily heady, nearly intoxicating.

“…No,” Cainan allowed his eyes to drift wholly closed as the damned impudent stripling took his foot in hand and, fortunately, his body did not betray him by turning ticklish at just the wrong moment, else he would not have had the chance to enjoy the sensation of strong, gentle hands kneading more tension than he ever would have imagined possible out of the very end of his legs. 

“You should try wearing something other than boots every now and again, Cainan,” Citan remarked, and cracked his toes, then rubbed each one individually with that oil, warming and delicious.

“I do,” Cainan felt compelled to protest, “Occasionally.”

Another sound that could not possibly have been a snort, emerging as it did from such an otherwise perfectly well-comported young Dynast. A towel went around his feet, to help them retain the warmth and to keep the oil from staining his cushions, and one of his legs was uncovered enough to allow access, warm, freshly washed and oiled hands lightly stroking his calf from the knee to the ankle. 

“Hauling around all that armor all the time has had at least one salubrious effect – you do not have the muscle tone of an _old man_.” His tone was gently mocking as he began kneading the short, bunched muscles of the calf and for the first time Cainan appreciated how much strength was hiding beneath Citan’s own robes, in those hands that were, under the silky smoothness of the oil, striped with swordsman’s callus.

“ _Imp_ ,” Cainan replied and groaned full-throated as those hands moved to his thigh with their almost teasing light strokes and the gentle strength that wrung the aches from his muscles and joints and nearly his bones, one limb at a time, and stirred a heat in his loins he had not felt in some time, in decades truth be told, since his retirement from the field and from the bloody rush of battle, from those nights when the pulse of fire in his blood would sometimes find its banking in the pleasures to be found in the arms and flesh of another man instead of bloodshed. That touch was rousing him, his manhood thickening between the cushions and his belly as more towels went around his legs and the bulk of the coverlet, as well, even before the boy – the young man – the bloody impudent creature – sat down on the convenient cushion of his own upturned buttocks and went to work on his neck and shoulders and back.

“You tore this muscle too long ago for me to repair it,” Citan’s tone was regretful as he went to work on a particularly stubborn knot, one that resisted his own efforts quite regularly, and convinced it to release, sending a rush of relief the length of his spine. “But I will do what I can.”

Cainan’s response was another groan, wrung from him by those skillful hands as they worked the tension from his shoulders and back, ran the length of his spine until it felt as supple as a stream of water, and set to work on his arms, which never seemed to stop aching until now, smoothed with oil and warmed with a scent like wild, sweet honey. Citan rolled off him and, with gentle care, helped him roll over onto his back, every muscle and joint nearly too relaxed to genuinely assist with the effort, and went to work again on the muscles of his neck and shoulders from the front, working oiled thumbs into the juncture of his neck and shoulder from above, smoothing them across the clavicle, and up the column of his throat to his jaw. He had not, until that moment, been aware of precisely how tense those muscles actually were until his companion set to work on them with thumbs and knuckles, and then moved up to his face with gentler strokes across his cheekbones and brow.

“Mmmm,” With effort, Cainan forced his eyes open and to focus as those hands withdrew from his face. “Perhaps I should permit this more frequently.”

“I recommend it heartily.” Oil-slicked fingertips ghosted across his chest, through the red curls just barely dusted with silver covering it, and down the still-flat planes of his stomach. “Among other things.”

The pad one well-oiled thumb found the crest of something slightly further south, where it stood stiff and proud amongst its own nest of reddish curls. Cainan caught his breath, his eyes flicking open and found his companion regarding him steadily from further down the table, his pale green eyes bright and intent. He caught Cainan’s gaze, and without breaking it even for a glance, he lowered his head and licked a long, slow stripe from root to tip, the expression in his eyes a silent request – though for what Cainan could not at that instant imagine, as a wordless moan of assent escaped his lips, and his blood took fire. Citan bent, his oiled hands sliding down to cup and stroke and knead the muscles of Cainan’s buttocks, as he proved himself as skilled with lips and tongue and, ever so slightly, teeth as he was with fingers and knuckles and soothing oils. Cainan’s hips quivered and bucked, and his spine arched helplessly, and the fire in his blood effervesced with every effort of that talented mouth as it brought him to the point of final release, his head growing lighter and lighter until it went utterly empty of all thought, of any awareness beyond warmth and wetness and sweet honeyed perfume and pleasure that seemed to go on and on.

At a vast distance, through waves of mingled delight and utter peace of mind and body, Cainan felt his companion rise, and draw the silken coverlet high on his body. A soft voice murmured, against his ear, “Rest, my lord.”

Rest he did, for he knew not how long, warm and free of pain and more at peace than he could remember being in years, nerves still humming quietly with the aftermath of release. At a great floating distance, he heard the door of his chamber slide open and soft voices conversing, but lacked both the will and the desire to bestir himself enough to try overhearing. Gradually, awareness of the world outside the bliss of his own flesh filtered into his awareness: the tread of soft slippers on the floor, the gentle chime of dishes and plates against the polished wood of the table, the scent of spices and steeping tea. With some small effort of will, he rolled onto his side and opened his eyes. The documents over which they had labored were cleared away to the sideboard and correspondence cabinet that occupied one wall of his office and a meal for two lay in their place. Also cleared away were the low chairs, replaced with two chaises, cushioned and hung with coverlets that would permit them to comfortably recline and take their refreshment at the same time. As he watched, Citan poured a cup of something richly copper-golden into a goblet and stirred in a spoonful of honey, then crossed to his side and knelt, offering it up between his joined palms. “Drink. You are going to be extremely thirsty, and quite soon.”

“Oh?” Cainan accepted the goblet and took an experimental sip: fruit juice, enriched with honey and spices. “Is this a known effect of your…ministrations?”

Citan colored ever so slightly, the blush drawing the fetching pallor of his lips and the pale hue of his eyes into delicate prominence. Cainan abruptly wished to kiss those lips until they were bruised crimson from the force of it, a desire even stronger than his sudden, raging thirst. _Patience_ , the small voice that he knew to be his self-control murmured in the back of his mind and, for a change, he heeded it, draining the last of the goblet and accepting his companion’s helping hand up, and the robe of fiery red silk to drape over his shoulders.

“It is not an effect of the therapeutic massage,” Citan admitted, as Cainan took to his dining couch, arranging the drape of his robe to achieve some pretense of modesty. “It is an effect of having not drunk enough throughout the day, which neither of us did, and then undertaking a physically rigorous activity, which the massage can be – particularly if one’s body is as tense as yours, my – “

“Cainan,” He smiled, lazily, and reached for the ewer of fruit juice. “You _must_ call me Cainan,”

“Cainan,” Citan acknowledged, with a slight inclination of his head, and lifted the heavy earthenware cover from a pot of soup, “You neglect the basic needs of your body for rest and refreshment too regularly, particularly when you are focused on a problem at hand.” He dipped out a bowl, thick with shrimp and scallops and slices of tentacle, shreds of cabbage and rounds of scallion and delicate orbs of roe, and set it before him. “And there is no need for you to be in pain when you do not have to be.”

“I stand chastened,” Cainan lifted the bowl and sipped some of the broth, found it delicious with spice and wine. “Perhaps I should hire you as my personal physician rather than my personal secretary.”

“Flattery,” Citan smiled, but it was wry and his tone held a slight edge, as he served himself.

“Hardly.” Cainan scooped up a shrimp and nibbled thoughtfully. 

“…Perhaps one day. Eventually.” The smile softened a bit, and he sipped his own soup. “For now I suggest you simply listen to the physician you have and not keep finding ways to ignore what your body is saying to you on a daily basis.”

“I will take your suggestion under advisement,” Cainan replied, with grave courtesy.

The rest of the meal passed in companionable silence – Citan was not the sort who perceived every silence as a void that needed to be filled with pointless chatter and Cainan was the sort who appreciated that forbearance, for it gave him time to think. The young man seated across from him, he knew, had graduated from the House of Bells – had, in fact, graduated not only in the high percentiles of his graduating class but fourth in the class entire and a runaway first in the courses involving field medical procedure and command; it was as clearly and obviously his calling as anything could possibly be. And yet, his family had not sought a commission for him after graduation in any Legion, nor had he been sent for further schooling in medicine among the physicians’ cooperatives of the Scarlet Prefecture. Instead, he was given a minor adjunctive secretary’s position in the staff of his mother, Senator V’Neef Casiadora, where he served with extreme competence but no particular distinction or even the chance of achieving distinction, being firmly the low man in the staff table of organization. It was, he was forced to assume, some form of ongoing education in the unpredictable world of politics within the Deliberative – but it was an education, as near as he could tell, that wasted the already first-rate military instruction he had received at the House of Bells and also disregarded his own self-evident skills as a tactician, a strategist, and a physician, letting alone anything else. The Lady V’Neef, he guessed, could not be overly pleased with it, but was willing to let whatever schemes his parents were concocting between them bear some sort of fruit before she took a direct hand in matters. And Citan, meanwhile, sought to find some purpose, some cause, from which he could derive actual satisfaction and not the minimal necessary standards of participation required to justify his allowance.

And it occurred to him, quite some weeks after the fact, that it was his slippery, subtle several-times-great-grandson Avedis who had brought this young man to his attention that night in the V’Neef gardens of the Imperial Palace. He made a mental note to ask one or both of them if they had attended Bells together; he rather suspected the answer, but it would be lovely to have some confirmation.

“What now?” Cainan asked, as the servants came to clear away all but the tea pot and the juice ewer, which they instead refreshed.

“Now you should likely bathe,” Citan replied. “The oil is nourishing to the skin and to the muscles once it soaks in but any residue should be washed away before you retire for the evening.” He rose. “And it does grow late.”

“It does at that.” Cainan caught those eyes – the palest shade of jade green there was – and refused to relinquish them. “Too late, I think, for you to take to the road tonight.”

“You wish me to stay?” Lightly, so lightly, but those eyes dilated slightly, turned fractionally darker.

“I do.” Cainan rose, and offered his hand. “Shall we?”

The bathhouse was kept warm at all hours of the day and night, in keeping with the vagaries of the manor’s residents which included not only Cainan but whatever siblings happened to be in the vicinity of the capital at any given time, plus their assorted retinues, randomly occurring children and grandchildren, and any petitioners they might be stringing along for whatever purpose. A discreet word to the captain of the guard led to the corridors between it and his quarters being summarily cleared of any lingering gawkers and the bathhouse itself emptied and resupplied quite completely. Someone had even refilled the soaking pool with clean water of his preferred temperature – steaming hot, the air thick with wisps of vapor as they entered. Cainan shrugged out of his lounging robe, hung it, and turned, a smile curling his mouth, to help Citan do the same, which brought another of those slight, charming blushes to his cheeks. Beneath the layers of his clothing, his skin was even paler, the hair he had as silvery-white as that on his head, fine and nearly invisible so perfectly did it blend in and he was struck by the desire to run his hands through it, to bathe himself in the perfume that clung to him, and so he did, gently extracting the jade pins that helped hold the crown of braids he wore in place, undoing the silken ties, and combing his fingers through those braids as they came loose. Unbound, Citan’s hair fell past his waist in a waterfall of shimmering snow white that smelt of linden blossom, honey and citrus and high Fire Season heat. Cainan buried his face in it and drew the scent deep into his lungs and his companion leaned back against him as he did so, catching hold of his thighs and pressing the muscular curve of his buttocks against the swelling heaviness between his legs.

Citan released his breath in a shaky, shuddering sigh and pulled away, just slightly, to turn the tap that released water into the wash basin then turned, reaching up to undo the braid wrapped around Cainan’s own head. His hair curled unmercifully in the damp heat of the bathhouse despite Citan’s best efforts to smooth it and, acknowledging defeat, he scooped up a dipper of water and simply poured it down the back of Cainan’s head and his spine. He chuckled and took the hint, settling in a stool over the drainage grate as his companion continued laving his head and body in warm water, massaging his scalp with the tips of his fingers as he worked the soap through his curls, scrubbing every inch of his body with cloth and soap and rinsing him clean. Cainan took his time with that waterfall of silver hair, longer than his own and sleek in its wetness, and the curls at the junction of his thighs, where something no longer nested quiescent but stirred under his touch.

A little sound escaped Citan’s lips as Cainan cupped him, weighed him gently, and began stroking, slow and intent, and caught his companion around the waist to hold him still. He pressed a kiss to the back of Citan’s neck and was rewarded with another of those tiny, choked sounds, sounds that grew gradually throatier and more wanton the closer he came, and by the time his back arched against Cainan’s chest as pleasure overcame him, turned into a full-throated moan. Citan fell back against him, his chest rising and falling quickly, and Cainan rinsed away the residue, helped him to his feet, and into the bath, sliding in beside him that they could lounge together in the hot water. Cainan kept one arm around his companion’s shoulders, the desire to touch him unabated, and Citan lay his sleek, silvery head on Cainan’s breast, draping a languid arm across his belly, and murmured, “We are both going to need a great deal to drink when we get out of here.”

“I see something I wish to drink now,” Cainan replied and claimed his mouth, tongue asking a permission that would clearly not be denied, their legs entwining as the kiss deepened. Citan caught at his hip as they rolled in the water, nails biting as he did so, and Cainan bent to press a hot line of kisses down his throat, suckling slowly as he went, flushed skin deepening in hue, ending with a bite to the curve of his shoulder, hard enough to draw forth a soft cry, not so hard as to break the skin.

They abided only a few moments longer, after that, and retired to Cainan’s inner chambers where, Citan was amused to discover, the servants had already delivered a decanter of wine, a ewer of water, and a flask of honeyed juice. He poured and Cainan accepted what he was offered, juice mixed with a thimbleful of something stronger, swallowed it down and caught that slim, pale creature to him and drank the flavor of it from his tongue, as well. Citan moaned against his lips, shameless, and pressed the last of the space from between their bodies and that was all the encouragement Cainan required to lift him and carry him bodily into the bedchamber, to lay him down in sheets that some prescient servant had sprinkled with musk and rosewater and pin his wrists above his head and explore his body as fully as he had been allowed to explore, with hands and mouth and tongue. The sounds that emerged from him were an enticement and a torment all their own as Cainan suckled slowly at the tender skin of his inner thighs, parted the firmly muscled globes of his buttocks and delved between them, kissed the length of his spine and held him close, cupped in his arousal in one strong hand. Another, even more prescient servant had replenished his supply of oils, for which Cainan was vastly grateful as he drenched his fingers in perfumed slickness and slid them into the exquisite tight heat he desired most ardently to claim.

“ _Cainan_ ,” The word escaped, thick with both yearning and entreaty, even as his companion’s body surrendered to the intrusion of his fingers, parted to allow him entry. “ _Please_.”

He could not quite resist the urge to tease, biting down gently against the back that pale neck and murmuring against his shoulder, “But what if all my body needs just now is this, my beautiful physician?”

Citan moved, more quickly and forcefully than Cainan thought possible, rolled him over so that he was pinned flat in his own pillows and sheets, erections grinding almost painfully as his companion straddled his hips. The eyes that met his were hot with desire, a smoky ring around dilated pupils, and the hand that took him knew its business, holding him precisely aligned. Watching the rigid length of his cock disappear into the sheath of that pale, perfect body was nearly enough to send him over the edge, his fingers digging into the coverlets as heat washed through him from the place where their bodies joined and held. And then the damned wanton, beautiful creature began moving, a slow rocking of his hips, the friction sweet, internal muscles tensing and relaxing, a taunt of his own that went on and on, forcing Cainan to meet and match it. Citan’s hands caught in the curls on his chest, and Citan’s honey-scented sweat slicked his palms as he reached up and took hold of his hips, his own cock raking across Cainan’s belly, leaving a sticky trail where it touched. Cainan pulled him down, hard, and thrust upward, harder, and Citan cried out incoherently in pleasure, striping his chest in hot white pulses even as his own climax shot up his spine, filling that exquisite body with heat and wetness that remained sheathed around him. Citan fell across his chest, still astride, his hair a curtain over them both and for a long time all Cainan could do was float in nerve-humming ecstasy, wrapping a handful around his fist and bringing it to his lips to kiss. Just as slowly, he became aware that he was not yet satisfied, his cock stirring to life again where it lay, still inside his companion’s body and now it was his turn to roll, and apply a bruising kiss to that beautifully pleading mouth even as Citan’s legs wrapped around his waist and pulled him in more deeply. It was hard and rough, that second time, as fierce an effort to lose himself in another’s body as ever any desperate after-battle liaison, forceful to the point of violence and Citan did not appear to mind, raking a hungry hand down his back just hard enough to draw blood, meeting every thrust with a throaty cry of passion. Orgasm, when it finally took him, was an explosion inside his mind and body, release such as he had rarely known, his seed spilling slick down his lover’s thighs to mingle with his own.

Cainan awoke, some time later, to find himself still entwined in Citan’s arms, their legs entangled, hair a mass of intertwined crimson and silver, the bed smelling of musk and rosewater and honeyed sweat, of warm male flesh and their union. Citan smiled sleepily down at him and that was all the encouragement he required; they joined twice more that night before the sky began to turn pale.

“It is nearly dawn,” Citan murmured against his neck, as they shared a single pillow. “I should – “

“Sleep,” Cainan replied, and pulled the covers tight around them, his arm an iron band around that slender body, holding him to his side. “You should sleep, and anything else we may discuss…later.”


End file.
